Back to Index Page

CoolAvenue's Interview with:
Simanti Talukdar
Symbiosis Centre for Management & Human Resource Development (SCMHRD), Pune

1. General Questions
2. Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation
3. Questions related to Group Discussion / Group Exercise
4. Interview-related Questions
5. After Joining MBA

2. Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation

Q. When did you start your preparation?
A. I started my preparation in January 2006, around 10 months before I took my first entrance exam.

Q. How many months and how many hours daily did you devote for preparation to entrance procedures?
A. I devoted around 2 hours per day on an average for about 10 months.

Q. Did you take up some coaching institute or you believed in self-study?
A. I joined a coaching class and it helped me to become more disciplined and bring about a more systematic approach to my studies, as also the regular mock cats were really helpful, not only to identify my strengths and weaknesses, but also to assess my relative performance. However, I think self-study is equally important, and coaching classes are just a facilitator rather than a substitute.

Q. Can you tell us which are your favorite books, books that you used for preparing for entrance, books for self-development and books for pure relaxation?
A. For my entrance exams, I concentrated on the course material provided by my coaching institute which was quite exhaustive. Apart from that, being a voracious reader, I read magazines, newspapers, online blogs, novels - basically anything I found appealing.

Q. What was your experience with coaching? Some feedback about faculty, coaching material and your overall experience with particular center.
A. I had joined TIME, Mumbai and I had a really great experience. I was offered a discount of almost Rs. 5000/- based on my performance in the written exam, and I found good value for money for all the services provided by them - coaching material, mock tests, seminars, workshops, GD/PI sessions. The faculty were mostly experienced alumni from reputed B-schools, and they were easily accessible, and very supportive.

Q. What are the others books & tests which you used for your MBA preparation?
A. For Maths and DI, I only used the course material and hand-outs given by my coaching institute. For English, I used to read newspapers like The Hindu, TOI, Economic Times, apart from the course material. For GK, I used to refer to Manorama Guide.

Q. What was your strongest and weakest area while preparing for MBA coaching?
A. My strongest area (or so I believe) was English, while my weakest area was Data Interpretation and the same was evident during most of the mock tests that I took. However, I ended up scoring the least marks in English. So I think it’s best not to have any preconceived notions and put in a balanced effort in all sections. At the same time, your scores need not necessarily reflect who you are!

Q. Some tips which you used for mastering Quant, RC, etc.
A. Invest more time on basics of mathematics and more and more practices, as I believe that practice and more practice and nothing else makes you perfect in Quant and RC.

Q. How much time did you put for MBA preparation everyday? How did you manage this while working full time?
A. I put in 2 hours of self-study per day on an average, apart from the time I spent at coaching classes. As I was working almost ten hours per day, I made sure that I studied for two hours in the morning before I left for work. At night, I used to do some general reading or work on my GK.

Q. Which all Exams and B-schools you applied to?
A. I appeared for CAT, XAT, SNAP, NMAT, IIFT, FMS, ATMA.
As for B-schools, I had applied to the IIMs, SP Jain, TAPMI, XLRI, XIMB, SIBM, SCMHRD, IIFT, NMIMS, FMS.

Q. Your present B-school and course.
A. I am presently studying in SCMHRD, Pune, doing 2-years full-time MBA.

Q. What procedures your school has for admission to its MBA program?
A. SCMHRD has a rigorous process: SNAP Test, Group Discussion (Elimination Process), Personal Interview, Essay Writing, overall Profile (Academic Record, Work Experience, Extra Curriculars).

Q. What is the range of score for students who are admitted?
A. SCMHRD accepted only SNAP scores. As they look at many parameters before giving out calls for GD/PI, there was no fixed cut-off as such. There were people with 80+ scores (out of 200) who didn’t get a call, while a few with 70 did receive a call. However, the lowest score accepted was 69.

Q. What was your score?
A. My SNAP Score was 85, CAT Score 93 percentile, XAT Score 97 percentile.

Contd.   3. Questions related to Group Discussion / Group Exercise